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B"sd
To Whom Can We Turn?
Gary Cooperberg
January 28, 2004
One of the encouraging signs that redemption is near is the adage of our sages, "The night is darkest, right before dawn." Although this statement is an observable fact, it applies to the situation which confronts us today. Antisemitism is growing all over the world. The nations are ganging up against Israel, trying to force her to commit suicide. And, even within the ranks of our own government, we see so-called leaders who haven't the slightest idea of what Jewish destiny requires of us.
Our problem is not Arafat or the overwhelming number of Islamic nations which seek our destruction. Our problem is not even pressure from the USA. These are merely symptoms of our problem. We have only one problem to overcome. We fail to recognize the real purpose for which the reborn Jewish State came into existence. If we honestly examine the circumstances under which this state was created, we cannot help but realize that it could only have happened via miracles. The Jewish people were at our lowest power since we were slaves in Egypt. We had barely escaped total annihilation and were not beloved by anyone. The idea of a Jewish homeland on the part of those nations which supported it was merely a less vile method to "solve the Jewish problem". And, among the Zionist leadership even at that time, most would have preferred to live under a British protectorate rather than declare independence. And logic was on their side. After all how could a motley group of hapless refugees hope to endure overwhelming hostile Arab neighbors independently?
Yet, in spite of both our enemies and most of our own leaders, Ben Gurion declared our independence and the world fully expected us to be destroyed by our enemies. This same expectation was repeated in June of 1967, when we surprised the world, and ourselves, by not only failing to be destroyed, rather by soundly defeating our enemies and returning to even more of our holy inheritance in a mere six days!
How can one begin to imagine that today, when the Jewish State is a strong and powerful nation with an army that is reckoned among the best in the world, our leaders would elect to surrender conditionally to enemies we are well able to defeat? And to compound the absurdity, the fact that our enemies have not for a moment ceased to murder our civilian population has not even slowed down our efforts to surrender to them!
It is worse than sickening to see our government releasing live murderers in return for a few Jewish bones. I can see exchanging dead Arabs for dead Jews and live Arabs for live Jews, but to give up living murderers for dead Jews is a vile concept which hardly encourages our enemies to keep their Jewish prisoners alive.
And to watch an alleged right-wing Prime Minister prepare to forcibly evacuate Jews from their homes in order to create a defacto PLO state which our enemies have not even demanded is the ultimate example of self contempt, as was the needless and disgusting destruction of a synagogue in Tapuach.
All of these terrible things were done by Jews who haven't an inkling of an idea of the purpose of the Jewish State. One cannot and does not compromise on things which do not belong to them. The Land of Israel was not a gift to the Jewish People. It was an obligation placed upon them by the Creator of the Universe. It is the height of haughtiness to assume that we have a right to negate our obligations in order to pacify our enemies. The reality is that the more we try to negate our obligations the stronger our enemies become and the more we suffer. We can see this very clearly. The only results from our efforts to placate our enemies and give Arafat autonomy was the elevation of terror and the increase in murder of innocent Jews. And still we seek to pacify those who would destroy us.
It is true that we are vastly outnumbered by our enemies. It is true that the USA has vast Arab financial and political pressure upon it to weaken the Jewish State and is trying to do so. It is also true that our continued existence is totally illogical in face of clearly overwhelming obstacles. So what shall we do? To stand up and fight against impossible odds is irrational. So we don't do that until our enemies force us to. The other option is to surrender. The problem with that is that our enemies will not accept anything short of total surrender. So we are engaged in a process of trying to negotiate a conditional surrender with enemies who will settle for nothing less than everything. And, when our enemies refuse to negotiate, our leadership has decided to surrender anyway, on terms which will certainly never be accepted. Thus we give substantial rewards to our enemies and weaken ourselves with absolutely no advantage to us.
Logically there is no reason why this country should continue to exist. We are vastly outnumbered by those dedicated to our destruction and our government seems to be working hand in hand with our enemies in the futile hope that this will at least temporarily placate them. The fact is that they have no real plans. Even these hopeless and faithless people are waiting for a miracle as that is the only way we can survive the odds against us.
One would think that if such people would just take the time to realize what they are actually doing, depending upon miracles, that they would take steps to earn those miracles by acting like Jews. Why should G-d provide miracles to those who deny Him, mock Him and humiliate Him? If we can only hope to survive via miracles, and if it seems probable that our enemies will eventually annihilate us, why are we waiting around for them to do it? If one comes to the conclusion that death is inevitable he has three choices. He can just lay back and die; he can try to escape; or he can fight back, even against impossible odds. I suppose the easiest response is to lay back and just die. But that is also the stupidest. Yet that is the choice we seem to be taking.
The Jewish State was not born yesterday. Our recent history should be enough to show us that we have no choice but to fight our enemies. Every war we fought in this country was in reaction to attempts by our enemies to destroy us. Had we lost even one war we would have ceased to exist. Let us learn from our past mistakes and not wait for further attacks to decide that we have no choice but to fight for our existence. Our enemies have made it easy. They have shown us that they are even willing to turn their wives and children into human bombs just to murder us. Why then do we insist upon negotiating our very existence?
We have no leaders. All we have is G-d. But, in truth, that is all we need. If every Jew would just realize this and simply conduct his own life in a sincere effort to serve Him, redemption will be hastened and the tragedies put to an end. There is no other peace plan that will work.
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